


Light Years Ago

by elsmaster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsmaster/pseuds/elsmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows it’s not what he thinks it is. He’s still half-dreaming, for god’s sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light Years Ago

His phone buzzes on the desk on the other side of the room, and it takes John a moment to register the sound. Bleary, he looks out into the dark, eyes flicking to the cracking paint in the top right corner he’s spent countless sleepless hours staring.

He presses his palms on his face and sighs, gets up and reaches for the phone. He doesn’t recognise the number and considers just letting it ring. He doesn’t.

‘Hello?’

There’s a sharp intake of breath and second of silence on the line before the call disconnects with a hollow click.

John knows it’s not what he thinks it is. He’s barely awake, still half-dreaming, for god’s sake. The time on the screen reads 03:48 and John doesn’t sleep.

 

 

 

Sometimes it feels like being haunted.

Sometimes he’s not sure it’s a bad thing.

He sleeps with his phone under his pillow and tells himself it’s not insane.

 

 

 

He pours the extra cup of tea down the drain, grips the counter until his knuckles turn white and grits his teeth hard enough to hurt.

 

 

 

John Watson is not stupid, nor is he fool. He does, however, come to doubt this when he realises he can no longer sleep without his phone.

The phone does not ring.

John isn’t sure what he’s expecting.

 

 

_‘John.’_

_‘Where are you?’_

_‘Phone box. Ohio.’_

There are no received calls the next morning. He _knows_ there aren’t but he checks for the sixth time, anyway, just to make sure.

He might be losing his mind.

 

 

 

‘I think he phoned me, a few months back,’ John tells Greg over his third pint.

‘Who?’ Greg asks, and after taking one look at John’s face, adds, brows raised, ‘Sherlock?’

John breathes in and looks away.

‘Yeah. I know,’ he says eventually. Huffs a laugh and drinks his beer. ‘I’m going mad aren’t I.’

 

 

 

His phone rings at half three on a Monday morning and he can’t bring himself to pick up.

He looks at the phone in his hands, the ringtone offensively loud in the quiet, dark flat.

The moon shines full and bright outside and somehow it feels like it means something.

The moon is full everywhere in the world.

 

 

 

He comes home drenched and chilled to the bone and finds the envelope on his desk. Unaddressed, long and thin.

LHR–JFK 2 DEC 0805

John doesn’t think, he just goes.

 

 

 

He travels light, his duffle bag on his shoulder as he walks across the park. Snow is beginning to fall and the first flakes melt when they touch the ground.

The hotel seems barely habitable and he decides on the stairs in favour of the lift that’s one wrong move away from crashing down the shaft.

John takes his time climbing up to the seventh floor and blames his racing pulse on his recent lack of proper exercise.

The door to the room is already open and John stops just outside for a moment, to let his breath even out, before going in and setting his bag on the floor.

‘You’ll catch your death,’ he says to the man by the open window, soft snowflakes melting on his dark curls.

‘Hardly,’ Sherlock says and smiles back at him.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to draw something for the June #letsdrawsherlock challenge but then I realised I prefer a slightly less visual narrative. So I wrote out the story I had in mind, instead. The challenge was to base your work on a song and thus, this one is entirely inspired by [Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MSwBM_CbyY), one of my favourite songs of all time.


End file.
